Mande,
 Have you been diagnosed with active Hep C yet?  I hope this not a dumb
question.  The spike in your LFTs (liver function tests in enzymes AST and
ALT) may be due to other factors than Hep C.  You mention that your Hep C
labs will come back soon.  Is that what you're waiting for, a screen to see
if you have actually been in contact with the virus?  I have seen lots worse
elevated liver enzymes on this group, by the way.  Oh, what prompted you to
have this medical done in the first place, I wonder.

Thank you for sharing your blood work results.

Cactus Jammies ===========

Let's cover the flagged entries first:

LDH measures the concentration of the enzyme Lactic Acid Dehydrogenase in
blood plasma. LDH tests are most often used to evaluate the presense of tissue
damage, covering the major organs and skeletal muscle tissues. A heart attack,
kidney damage, significant liver damage, or a deep bruising muscle injury
would all be expected to *raise* LDH.

Your LDH reading is marginally below the "normal" range for your lab. That
should be a *good* sign, though it could be the result of the drugs you are
taking.

The next three tests (AST, ALT and GGT) are also associated with enzymes that
can vary in concentration in the presense of injury (including inflammation)
to major organs and muscle tissues. ALT, in particular, is of particular
interest to folks with liver disease, but someone who has experience cardiac
event(s) or a crushing muscle injury could read above the normal ranges for
these tests.

Your AST is at the high end of the normal range, and your ALT is obviously
elevated along with your GGT reading. But before you get overly worried, as an
ALT of 80 might seem very high, but folks that are HCV+ routinely see *much*
higher ALT - like two or four times as high as yours (case in point:
pre-treatment, my ALT hit 166).

Otherwise....

The lipid tests are barely interesting, you're just a scoche above the
"normal" ranges for total cholesterol, due to a moderately high Low Density
Lipoprotein reading (your HDL looks good, however). Nothing that dietary
discretion and a bit more exercise couldn't rectify.

And there's nothing in the CBC/Differential tests that looks interesting, they
all look horribly normal :-)  The Platelet count indicates you're not burning
up plates to repair internal damage - folks with toasty livers usually sport
much lower platelet counts. And your whites, reds, hemoglobin - they all look
very good through all those tests, both counts, size, types of WBCs - it all
looks very good indeed.

And your thyroid test (TSH) is almost dead-nuts in the middle of normal range.

And looking back at the first set of tests, your Albumin looks great, BUN
looks great, Bilirubin looks great, Iron looks great...

So...I'd quess, you're actually in pretty good shape, aside from a touch of
high cholesterol and some indication of inflammation/injury somewhere. If you
really are infected with Hep C, it couldn't have been for very long, yes?

Cheers

/greyhackles

Ok, so now the PA has decided that I have to go see a GI doctor.  There
is nothing she can do for me and said she can't figure out what the
problem is.  So now I am off to find a GI doctor that accepts my ins.
What fun.